International famous violinist    Zhu Dan

Antarctic Forum gave me the chance to reach the southern end of the earth, which was the only continent I have never been to. I appreciated the vast of nature and enjoyed the beauty of musicin Antarctica. I spent two unforgettable weeks with forum members, attending lectures held by experts and communicating with each other, which widened my horizon and inspired me a lot.

When it comes to Antarctica, the first impression of most people might be penguins and so do I. I regarded penguins as “the promotion ambassadors of Antarctica”. I still clearly remembered that I was moved into tears by penguins’ spirits after watching the documentary of “March of the Penguin” several years ago. The big family of penguins love each other and are well-organized with strong team spirit which are pursued and shared by mankind,aren’t they?

Before coming to Antarctica, my mind was full of various longings and imagination about the coming journey.I envisioned the scenery, ecology and how to escape unscathedfrom the Drake Passage which has the fiercest waves for 48 hours. I also thought that as a musician howIwould be affected by the atmosphere of this mysterious continent and did music only be restricted to mankind? With so many thoughts and curiosity, I boarded the “Silver Sea” cruise to start the visit to Antarctica in the following 10 days. After sailing out of Ushuaia, the concept of time gradually went away from me. I seemed to shuttle to another space time and the disembarkation twice a day has proved my feeling of shuttling to a different space. Maybe because of the desolate and uninhabited image, I thought that I was on another planet. However it is this pure land which has never been conquered and exploited by human that enables us to introspect the problems occurred during the development of mankind so that we can save the ecological resources of the earth.

The human civilization has advanced rapidly, especially in the past two centuries. It created more convenience for our life while at the same time it broke many ecological balances. After coming to Antarctica, the deepest perception I had was whether human beings need to dominate the earth? Does the world we usually talked about include the whole earth or is it only limited to human? In the modern society we are all busy with our work and life, how many people would be aware that we are just one part of species living on the earth and we are breathing under the common air with billions of other species? When our technological development reached a very high level, whether could we abuse these tools to achieve convenience for ourselves and intentionally or not to destroy other species who have the same right to survive. I thought about how to unify our thoughts. We should do something to serve the earth in stead of serving people only. When we are conquering the earth, whether have we ever considered about respecting the earth just as penguins know how to respect other animals like birds or sea lions living in the same area with them in harmony for hundreds of years in Antarctica without national boundaries. For our own sake, human beings have fought with each other for thousands of years and has damaged too many natural resources. If there’s no healthy and positive environmental circulation system, we will have to pay a heavy price for our interests and dig a grave for human civilization.

The journey has been over for nearly a month. Like other members I flew back to the northern hemisphere which is more familiar to me from the remote southern hemisphere. I can also see snow everywhere in Europe, just like in Antarctica. What comes to my mind is always our expedition in Antarctica. I often flipped through pictures to review my expedition in Antarctica. Even the days of seasickness were also worth remembering! Antarctica is rich in oil and mineral resources and rare species of animals, but what we brought back is not those resources but the precious Antarctic spirit. The spirit doesn’t mean conquering the pure land but spiritualizing ourselves from the water and air in Antarctica in order to influence and propagate more people. The expedition to Antarctica gave me an unforgettable chance to have a new perspective of the world and life. It is also a sublimation of my life experience and a baptism of personal ideologicalrealm. The journey is such a perfect combination of nature and mankind!